Mitt Romney Served Without Pay for 28 years…Really? No.

So, you may have seen the Internet meme that says Mitt Romney spent 28 years in ‘unpaid service to his country, his church and his community’.
And you may have seen the Politifact and Snopes article that says this is ‘substantially true.’
Here’s what’s meant by ‘substantially true.’Claim: Mitt Romney inherited no money from his father.Fact: Romney was already a multimillionaire when his father died. Nevertheless, he did receive an inheritance, which he invested for three years and then donated to a college in his father’s name, which is not unusual among the very wealthy.Claim: Mitt Romney volunteered for his father’s gubernatorial campaign for a year.Fact. He was 15.Claim: Mitt Romney volunteered on his father’s staff for eight years.Fact: His father was only governor for six years and Mitt, a student, was not anywhere near his father’s office most of that time.Claim: Mitt Romney served for no pay as a Mormon missionary in Europe.Fact: Yes he was a missionary, as all male Mormons are expected to do. Curiously, most are only required to serve for two years, but he stayed on in Paris for 30 months…which allowed him to avoid getting called up for Vietnam.Claim: He was an unpaid stake (local) president of his church for 10 years.Fact: Nobody gets paid to be of service in the Mormon church (except perhaps at the highest levels).Claim: He refused pay to be President of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games.Fact: He was paid substantially for his work at the Olympics, and received hefty bonuses too, but he donated them to charity (keep in mind his was very, very wealthy by this time). Nobody knows what charities he donated to. Hopefully it wasn’t the Benevolent Police Officer’s Union of the military junta in Burma, which is where he had all the US Olympic team uniforms made.Claim: He took no pay as Governor of Massachusetts.Fact: Correct, but interestingly, he bought all of the hard drives from all of the computers of all of his staff when he left. So he must have been hiding something. Anyway, a governor’s salary was a drop in the bucket to what he was making by this time as well. Technically, he should not have even qualified to run for governor as he spent the previous several years as a resident of Utah during the run-up to the Olympic Games. (He paid off a large sum in back taxes that were owed in order to satisfy the election commission.)
I think a more salient point would be that he NEVER WORKED FOR AN AVERAGE PERSON’S PAY IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE, and probably would not relate to what that is like.
The man was raised into a life of complete privilege and luxury, so much so that his biographical narrative has somehow overlooked the vast sums of money that his parents threw down to pay for his boarding school, his missionary work and travel, his prodigious college expenses, his first house, and his many trips back home and to vacations whenever he wanted.
In addition, his wife notes that he was already successful on the stock market while in college, which allowed them to pay basic living expenses. Anybody can tell you that kind of money doesn’t come from throwing down $100 a week day trading.

The truth is that Romney came from a life of privilege, and he never had to work until he got out of college. Perhaps his most outstanding achievement was that he graduated with honors in a double business/law degree and, as the son of a Republican former governor and presidential candidate, was highly sought after by Wall Street consulting agencies. So he landed a cushy job at Bain, where he bankrupted 30 percent of the companies under his management.

Fully 70 percent of the money that was made at Bain came from investments in just 10 companies, and four of them went bankrupt within 10 years. Not exactly a spectacular result, unless you’re referring to the money that Bain siphoned out of its clients in that time frame.

On balance, his ’28 years without pay’ just don’t add up. Nor does the whole meme, for that matter.

Romney isn’t about working for free. In the world of conservative business and politics, nothing comes for free.

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9 comments on “Mitt Romney Served Without Pay for 28 years…Really? No.”

Jason

August 24, 2012

Wow. Now only if you would put half the energy into finding out about Obama’s past we might get somewhere. Oh wait, that’s right, we can’t. All those records are sealed or lost or unavailable for some silly reason or another. Oh, by the way, has Barrack ever worked a day in his life? I mean other then pretending to be a foreign exchange student to get a free college education. That would probably take some effort. And isn’t two of Barry’s favorite presidents FDR and JFK? Talk about being born with multiple silver utensils in your mouth.

If only Republicans didn’t have a 100% consistency of bombing 3rd world countries since the time I was a kid, I might trust them more. I hate to see this guy get elected, America doesn’t need another war going, we already have the blood of 1.6 million Iraqis on our hands.
I don’t agree w/ Obama’s SOPA, NDAA, or a few other things he’s done but at least he’s not trying to bomb Iran. Religion kills, we should ban all religion, all Jesus is good for is killing poor people.

Yeah, because all the extremists are Jesus followers. If you want to talk about the religion that is doing the killing, you might want to start with the one that is working towards nuclear armament as we speak.

I would say that Obama has never volunteered any service to his? country, he like most democrats just take from the system, and ask that you give more. No thanks we not buying what you are selling, sorry!

@ Rogue If Jesus is only good for killing poor people then I hope you are ……. hmmm Im a Christian and believe in Christ deny me my right and you will find I fight back….Go ahead and vote for Oboma and when you are forced to take a microchip in your hand think of where your God is… I will say a prayer for you I hope and pray God shows you the light of Jesus so that one day I can meet you. Otherwise I will only be able to watch as you are tormented in Hell!

And how old are you Rogue? 12 I am guessing? You know Clinton did his share. Though not nearly enough. Had he went after bin Laden then maybe we could’ve avoided a lot of the mess of the last 12 years. Not sure how old you are so you may not remember Johnson and Vietnam. Johnson did plenty of 3rd world bombing and JFK before. Though JFK wanted to pulled out of Vietnam, he didn’t get the chance.

Oh, banning all religion…that’s a good thought except how would you enforce that exactly? Kill anyone practicing? Jail them? You know, freedom of religion is the best action and had served us well for over 200 years. The people that haven’t come to grips with it are the ones who are initiating and have been initiating the conflict for well over 2000 years.

“All Jesus is good for is killing poor people.” Those are your words, right? Iran says when they get nukes they WILL wipe Israel from the face of the earth. Sounds like Allah is good for nothing but killing EVERYONE.

If you are 12, do more history research. If you are not, Do a lot more history research. Actually from a history book or several because getting your talking points from your favorite news channel or political website or the Obama administration has left you with no real knowledge to stand behind.

30 months serving an LDS mission doesn’t mean draft dodging, it means he was a leader and was able to make a significant difference. Being a Mormong who spent more than 2 years out myself I know the difference. If he wanted to dodge a war then college would have done it as well. Thanks for a biased editorial. Next I look forward to your take on the selfishness of Gandhi.